“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth.” [JOB 19:25 NRSV]
After Job’s confrontation with God he had seen the great glory so shot through with sheer, fierce light and life and gladness, had heard the great voice raised in song so full of terror and wildness and beauty, that from that moment on, nothing else mattered. All possible questions melted like mist, and all he could say was, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5–6).
But God didn’t let him despise himself for long. He gave back to Job more riches than he had ever had before together with his health, and Job lived to have a whole new set of children.
Job never again asked for an explanation. He knew that, even if God gave him one that made splendid sense out of all the pain and suffering that had ever been since the world began, it was no longer splendid sense that he needed, because with his own eyes he had beheld, and not as a stranger, the One who in the end clothed all things, no matter how small or confused or in pain, with his own splendor. And that was more than sufficient.
Would an encounter with God, like the one Job had, dissolve all your questions about pain and suffering?
Lord, help me submit my questions to your glory. Amen. [Faith that Matters]
